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IA22.6
Behind a locked door to an ordinary room in the basement of a police station marked "interrogation" was going on anything but that. The crippled figure on the floor only had the energy left in him to bleed on the tile. One burly cop stood above him swinging a cane as easily as if it were a baseball bat. Another cop stood just off to the side, watching the proceedings with a worried expression covering his face. The second cop kept darting glances at the door, as if expecting someone to walk through it and find them roughing up one of the people they had sworn to protect. The body moaned once, echoing off the Spartan grey walls of the room. The burley cop, impervious to him, took another swing at the crumpled form on the floor. Hallaghan frowned. He would have liked to kill the fruit completely and be done with it. In fact, there was nothing stopping him from doing just that, except for the prior commitment to Ramona. It made him sick to think of it and hit the body on the floor, again, bringing down his cane so hard, it jarred the muscles of his arm. He brought up his arm again. To heck with Ramona, to heck with the eyes, one less fruit on the face of the planet would be good enough for him. A hand clamped onto the shaft of the cane and stopped its motion a foot away from the body. "Don't," Harris said. "You've done enough." Hallaghan growled and threw away the cane in disgust. "Don't fuckin' stop me. You know what he is." "He's a human being." "No, he isn't. This freakin' fairy's less than that." Hallaghan pulled the Doctor into the only chair in the room and looked at him. The Doctor slumped over, battered and bruised and most likely bleeding internally. "He's in no shape for Ramona." "Of course he is. All she needs is those eyes. I could have shot him twenty times, and this sorry fuck would still be decent enough for her to take." Hallaghan took out his piece and considered it. "You wouldn't." "You are getting weak, Harris. But, you're right. I wouldn't in here, at any rate. It would bring the sergeant in here in nothing flat." He could feel the dull ache behind his eyes growing larger by each heartbeat. With every thump the pain magnified twenty-fold. Thump, thump, in the darkness, to the haunting beat of a bass drum as a voice lightly filtered through the darkness. He could just barely recognise the singer. It was one of those new ones. Fontella, that was it. "Come on baby and rescue me," she crooned. He couldn't feel anything, just the pain, more palpable than anything he had ever known. Like someone had attacked his head with a skewer. He wanted to blame it on the Ruskies. Everyone seemed to be blaming everything on them lately. But it was most likely nothing more than a bad trip. A bad batch of Coke. But through it he could still smell Roni's cheap perfume. A light breeze of Hyacinth, purchasable at any corner drug store. Squinting into the darkness oddly relieved the pain by ten percent. Maybe it was the pressure he was exerting, maybe it was just focusing on something other than the pain. He saw something through the darkness, lit by an unearthly glow. A body lay huddled several feet away from him. He could see the pained expression dominating the man's face and the black stain that covered the outer edges of the man's jacket. A black puddle surrounded the man as if a clumsy student had overturned a pot of black ink. He had seen that jacket somewhere before. He squinted harder. Ah yes, his father's jacket. The same one his old man had worn when he had made that fatal meeting with the Red Lightning Tong gang. The meeting he never returned from. Freddie walked closer, his footsteps echoing in the darkness, in time to his heartbeat and the waves of pain. He looked down at his father. This time the jacket wasn't obstructing anything. He could see the extent of his father's wounds. This time there was no one around to tell him about it second hand. This time he could see it with his own eyes. The guts were exposed for the world to see and someone had stirred the organs around like a bowl of spaghetti. The same someone had played a child's game of jump rope with his father's intestines while his father still writhed in agony and then casually tossed aside the organ as a child would toss aside a used toy that no longer held its interest. The man's eyelids fluttered and a low moan escaped his lips. His hand clenched and unclenched, the bloody fingers reaching for something. He opened his eyes and fixed them on Freddie. Freddie turned away his head, sickened at the sight. The old man had deserved it for thinking the world was his oyster, ripe for the picking. He turned back to see his father's hand reaching toward a glob of something just out of his reach. Freddie's foot met with the object, intending to kick it away, but it clung to the toe of his boot with a sickening squish. The object felt vaguely warm and alive. It moved slightly in time to the waves of pain emanating from his brain. He bent down and touched it. It was his father's heart. The bile rose up from his stomach. He tried to fight it down, but it was a losing battle. He felt the water rise up his throat, but then relief set in and the pain slowly started to dissipate as the trip wore off. The voice crooning "rescue me" broke through the darkness and the room disappeared back into his mind. A low husky voice breathed into his ear, "A little lower." He worked his thumbs into her neck with a soothing circular motion, trailing down to her arms, pausing only to catch her wrists in one hand and flip her onto her back. The sheets rippled around her exposed body. Roni laughed under him as he traced her bikini lines with a wet finger, down to her breasts. His questing hand teased her breasts and moved to her smooth belly enjoying the warmth. He traced his way further down and hovered between her legs. Her thighs rose up to meet him, pincering him gently. "So, was he as good a fuck as me?" Her innocent grey eyes clouded over and bored into his. "What the fuck are you talking about?" The saxophones stopped and a reporter came on announcing the latest news of Vietnam. The last of the revolts had been crushed and the country was still in a state of chaos after the death of President Ngo Dinh and the subsequent take over by General Duong Van Minh. Freddie precariously leaned over and switched the radio off. "Don't play coy with me. I know you fucked him. I can see it written all over your face." She jerked roughly out from under him and pulled the sheets off the bed with her. She wrapped them around herself and shot him an icy glare. "I did try to seduce him, you're right. But he didn't want it. He wanted to get to know me, not a romp in the sheets." "You're even more of a bubblehead than I thought if you believed that old line." "He's a friend. I doubt you'd know what a friend is even if one hit you with a pickup." This wasn't going the way he planned. He figured he could accuse her of it, and she would concede easily what rank the bastard had been on her top hundred and what number notch he clocked in on her tally sheet. Then they'd kiss and make love the way they always did, patching up things with the heat of their passion. How could he have guessed it so wrong? Could he have judged that loony wrong? Damn it to hell, the guy was starting to affect him, too. Freddie Merker had never judged anyone wrong before and never would. He'd bet a sack of Hash on it. He heard the bathroom door slam and could still see part of the bed sheet sticking out from under the door. "Roni, doll, I forgive you." Still silence. Damn it to Hell. He reached over and pulled open one of the drawers of the nightstand. He grabbed a handful of Hash and rolled himself a cig. He lit it and sat amid the blankets trying to return to a state of bliss. He sucked in deeply and exhaled. "It doesn't really matter any more considering he's out of our life for good." He left the bed and walked over to the bathroom to hear her reaction. "He's what?" Granted, it wasn't the reaction he was expecting. The door opened a crack and a whiff of perfume and soap wafted out with the heat from a shower being run. A grey eye met his and considered him. "He's gone," Freddie announced, putting his hand on the edge of the doorframe. "I saw your 'friend' down at the station this afternoon not that long after my drop off. I pointed Hallaghan in his direction. At least it's better than having him sniff up my arse. Maybe now that cop will cut me some slack." "How could you!" The bathroom door slammed in his face, breaking several of his fingers in the process. He howled in pain as he pulled his fingers out. He slumped to the floor and sucked on the wounded fingers, trying to rethink this whole conversation. The door abruptly opened, again, and Roni stormed out, still clad in her sheets. She shot him an evil glance, picked up her trailing sheets, and marched over to the closet. She rifled through the clothes and pulled on a tight red skirt and a flimsy black blouse. "Why are you getting dressed, doll? I thought we could have a celebratory night. Some wine, some Coke, and finish the whole with a siesta for two." She marched over to the side of the bed, pulled away the sheets until her purse fell out, some of the contents spilled onto the floor. She bent down to pick them up, her cleavage threatening to spill out of the top of her shirt. "In your dreams," she muttered. She pushed her hair into place and used one of the pins that fell out of her purse to fasten it and marched out of the room. "And don't try to follow me," she growled as she opened the door to the apartment. "Hon?" "Don't Hon me. I'm off to bail out someone I can actually call a friend." The walls of the apartment shuddered threateningly as she slammed the door. The end of a brilliant day, as far as he was concerned. The man in the business suit stuffed the newspaper article into his back pocket. "Which is why I'm here to find as much information as possible about what exactly they are trying to do with their experiments and bring them down for good." "Vengeance, I can live with that, but it still doesn't make your story any more credible, " warned Kirena. She hadn't fired, but she hadn't put down the gun yet either. "If you want proof, I know where the exit is," offered Maxim, "and I'll show you the way out if you don't attract attention to yourselves and help me to scout around this place first. Horowitz expects me to be with the group of prospective investors, and will get suspicious if I don't rejoin them soon." "We should just leave and bring the police here. If they really are doing this to innocent people, someone on the outside should know about it," reasoned Kirena. "Not an option. You forget I'm not really here. Just think about it, with all of those people, like your friend in the cowboy getup, mysteriously disappearing off the streets and ending up here, you'd think someone would have noticed by now." "Which means the authorities are in on it. Bloody hell, as if my day couldn't get any worse," complained Luke. "So, the next step would be to figure out exactly what they are doing and to find solid proof to show to people on the outside," Kirena agreed. "Precisely." "I still don't trust you entirely." "Look, doll face, I don't trust you either, but until one of us comes up with a better plan, that's our course of action." "We should just make for the nearest exit and return with the Doctor," Luke suggested. "He'd know what to do." "No. Absolutely not," said Maxim. "Once they've noticed we're missing, they'll pick up their operations and pull a disappearing act that even my agency might have a problem tracking. No, we go ahead with the plan of finding out what their real agenda is and what their experiments here entail. We need to know as much as possible before we leave." "Alright then," Luke said and motioned to Kirena. She sidled next to him with her blaster. He gently pushed open the door. She knocked it fully open, sending the guard standing in front of it, stumbling out into the middle of the hallway where he collided with the other guard standing in front of the room on the other side of the hallway. The two men collapsed in a heap on the tile and quickly tried to untangle themselves. Kirena didn't give them the chance. She aimed the blaster at the first guard and fired. The marine jerked rigidly and slumped onto the floor, half clutching the other marine. The remaining guard looked up at Kirena and opened his mouth to shout for reinforcements. Luke didn't waste any time pushing out of the room behind Kirena and jumped the remaining guard. He flew at the guard and managed to render the poor man unconscious with one of his Cuban heels. He smiled up at Kirena from where he was sitting on top of the two uniformed men taking a doze on the tiled floor. "And you dare make fun of heels." "I could have taken care of him myself." "I'm not about to let you have all the fun. Couldn't resist the uniforms anyway." Maxim nodded at the men on the floor. "Lock them in our room, before someone notices they're not merely taking a nap." Kirena grabbed the first man's ankles and pulled him awkwardly into the room they were just in. Luke grabbed the other and followed suit. He helped her push her burden onto the gurney next to where John was still sleeping and turned around to heave his guard onto the one next to it. Luke helped her strip the men down to their underwear and held up one of the uniforms. "It really isn't my colour." "Just put it on already." She turned around and started taking off her boots. Luke watched with a wry grin as she shed her jacket and reached for the zipper in the back of her dress. She paused in mid motion and turned around. She glared at him and turned back around. He shrugged and put on his own uniform. The sleeves were far too long and the blue clashed with his eyes, but it would do temporarily until they could get out of this place. He turned back around just as she was pulling her uniform jacket into place. She stuffed her hair under the cap and sucked her chest in. Hopefully no one would look at her closely. He scrutinised the missing persons report, and bit back an outraged growl. He looked up at Harris to confirm the report. The younger man nodded his head. "She's in talking to the sergeant now. All legs and chest, a total knock out." Hallaghan clamped his eyes shut. It was simply too much of a coincidence. And he had just helped the daytime runner load the fag into his car moments before. There was still a puddle of his blood staining the floor in the interrogation room. Any more and it might look suspicious, but right now it looked as if someone had simply gotten a bloody nose during questioning. He crumpled up the report and tossed it aside angrily. He retrieved his cane from the corner of the room where it had landed earlier that afternoon. Hallaghan roughly pushed past Harris and walked out into the hall. He cursed every step of the way feeling the bullet wound dig deeper into his foot. Some of the people in the entryway turned to watch him as he hobbled into the room. The officer on duty uneasily smiled at him, still sweating as he talked to a brunette with hair that dripped like chocolate ice cream onto his desk. She giggled with a voice that tinkled like a silver bell at Christmas. He swept the room with a malevolent glare. Most of the people in the room he would take to Ramona some day, one way or another. With the exceptions of the few officers on duty rushing around trying to take their statements, all of the people in the room were drug abusers, whores, pimps, or juvenile delinquents and most certainly couldn't be trusted around the rest of the sheep who obediently worked for a living. Hallaghan pushed his way through the crowd of people, fighting off the impulse to grab the nearest low-life next to him and beat him to a bloody pulp. He mercifully reached the door and entered the hallway leading to the offices of the higher ranking cops. Sergeant Hitchcock's office was the large one in the back, away from the noise of the main room. He scanned the desk in each of the rooms between the entryway and the sergeant's office. No one else was around. Good, he liked it that way. He stopped outside the office and peered in through the glass window. He could see the both of them in there. She had one hand on the sergeant's chest, her head leaning seductively close to his face. Any closer and their lips would be touching. He couldn't see where her other hand was positioned, but he could well imagine where. The sergeant's arm rose up to meet the back of her head and released her hair from a decorative pin. She shook her hair, letting it fall loosely about her shoulders. Damn fuckin' whore. Luke looked around him in wonder. It was like something out of a warped new rendition of Frankenstein, but minus the monster. The room was painted a sterile white, adorned by pieces of equipment that could only have belonged to Dr. Jeckyl. In place of the monster was something strapped to a metal chair in the centre of the room. He crept closer to the chair and looked at the figure secured in it. It was a young girl barely out of her teens. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun, but obviously not by the person who had slapped on her dark rouge lipstick. Her dress was torn in places beneath the medical robe that covered her top half and her arms were livid with bruises and welts. Her neck was strapped against the chair, and there were metal clamps on her forehead pulling the skin taught so she couldn't close her eyelids. Cords snaked out from underneath her medical robe and disappeared into the shadows of the room. Her eyes bored into him, but still she didn't move a muscle. He wondered if she was even alive. He reached out to feel for a pulse. The door to the laboratory flapped open behind him. He quickly backed away from the girl and made a mad dash into the corner of the room, pausing long enough to open the door to the equipment cabinet and dive inside. He kept the door slightly open and watched. A man entered the room dressed in a green robe his hands swathed in rubber gloves. He looked around the room, as if searching for something or someone. His eyes seemed to rest on the cabinet, but then turned as a group of people entered the room. More people dressed in green robes with facemasks, and rubber gloves entered the room followed by an entourage of men dressed in business suits. The suits filed into a side room with a glass window. The light went on inside the room and he could see them sit down. One of the men leaned over to whisper to someone else, but a man in a blue suit waved him to be quiet. The doctors busied themselves around the room checking various pieces of equipment. The first doctor went over to the girl and shone a pencil light into her eyes. He shut it off and gestured to one of his other colleagues. They both looked at her for a few minutes whispering too low for Luke to hear. They seemed to make up their minds about something and nodded to each other. The first Doctor went to the side of the room and pulled a cart of surgical equipment next to the chair while the other Doctor walked over to the side room. Instead of going in, he stopped just in front of the glass window and turned to face the suits behind the glass. "This is the end of the tour, gentlemen. You will now witness the dawning of a new age. Behold Project: CLOCKWORK." Two words mentioned repeatedly. The blending of inorganic with organic. The melding of nature and machine. We work like clockwork. Our thoughts, the blood through our veins, pumping in time to an internal chronometer, passing by gears and cogs called organs. The two completely dissimilar aspects working in unison to create the ultimate creature. A creation devoid of thought, of care, of want or need, except to serve and to serve with a perverse pleasure to be the perfect being. We will become something less than human, or maybe something more than human. We will become a clockwork orange. END OF BOOK ONE }}